Uproar Over New Yorker Cover

Obama, McCain Campaigns Denounce Caricature

The New Yorker magazine is igniting a firestorm with a cover this week that collects, in a caricature, the right-wing stereotypes about Sen. Barack Obama.

The presumptive Democratic nominee is in Muslim garb giving a fist-bump to his wife, Michelle, who is shown wearing an Afro and a machine gun. An American flag burns in the fireplace, and a photo of Osama bin Laden is on the wall.

Editor David Remick defended the cover, saying, "Satire is part of what we do, and it is meant to bring things out into the open, to hold up a mirror to the absurd."

But Obama spokesman Bill Burton said, "Most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree."

Tucker Bounds, spokesman for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the presumptive Republican nominee, said, "We completely agree with the Obama campaign," as Mark Halperin of Time magazine reported on his Web site on politics, "the Page."

The cover of the July 21 issue, on sale on Monday, is dubbed "The Politics of Fear." "Artist Barry Blitt satirizes the use of scare tactics and misinformation in the Presidential election to derail Barack Obama's campaign," according to a New Yorker news release issued Sunday.

Blitt toldNico Pitney of the Huffington Post via e-mail Sunday night, "I think the idea that the Obamas are branded as unpatriotic [let alone as terrorists] in certain sectors is preposterous. It seemed to me that depicting the concept would show it as the fear-mongering ridiculousness that it is."

Remick said in his own statement, "Our cover 'The Politics of Fear' combines a number of fantastical images about the Obamas and shows them for the obvious distortions they are. The burning flag, the nationalist-radical and Islamic outfits, the fist-bump, the portrait on the wall -- all of them echo one attack or another. Satire is part of what we do, and it is meant to bring things out into the open, to hold up a mirror to the absurd. And that's the spirit of this cover. The reader of the same issue will also see that there are two very serious articles on Barack Obama inside -- Hendrick Hertzberg's Comment, 'The Flip Flop Flap,' and Ryan Lizza's 15,000-word reporting piece on the candidate's political education and rise in Chicago."

New Yorker spokeswoman Alexa Cassanos told Journal-isms she did not know whether any people of color were involved in the cover's vetting process.

What makes this piece of satire unusual is that the objects of the satire -- those who are distorting the Obamas' personas -- aren't pictured. Instead, the Obamas are shown. Neither is the New Yorker known for outrageous covers.

Mike Allen of Politico.com reported, "At a press availability Sunday afternoon in San Diego, Obama was asked, according to a transcript by Maria Gavrilovic of CBS News: 'The upcoming issue of The New Yorker, the July 21 issue, has a picture of you, depicting you and your wife on the cover.

"'Have you seen it? If not, I can show it to you on my computer. It shows your wife Michelle with an Afro and an AK-47 and the two of you doing the fist bump with you in a sort of turban-type thing on top. I wondered if you've seen it or if you want to see it or if you have a response to it?"

"Obama, shrugging incredulously, replied: 'I have no response to that."

But Burton, his spokesman, said, "The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree."

On CNN's "Reliable Sources" on Sunday morning, Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page said he had no problem with the cover. " Remember a few years ago, when the New Yorker had a cover at a time of great black/Jewish tension in New York? You had a cartoon of an obvious Orthodox Jewish male kissing a black woman, and this created a lot of buzz.

"That's what it is, buzz. It's discussion. It's talk. And that's what covers are supposed to do. So I think, you know, it's quite within the normal realms of journalism. "

The blogosphere started reacting late Sunday.

"Knowing the liberal politics of the magazine, I believe the magazine's staff when they say the illustration is meant ironically, as a parody of the caricature some conservatives (and some supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.) are painting of the Obamas," Jake Tapper of ABC News wrote on his blog.

"But it's still fairly incendiary, at least as these things go. I wonder what the reaction would be were it the Weekly Standard or the National Review putting such an illustration on their covers.

"Intent factors into these matters, of course, but no Upper East Side liberal -- no matter how superior they feel their intellect is -- should assume that just because they're mocking such ridiculousness, the illustration won't feed into the same beast in emails and other media. It's a recruitment poster for the right-wing."

"Presumably the New Yorker readership is sophisticated enough to get the joke, but still: this is going to upset a lot of people, probably for the same reason it's going to delight a lot of other people, namely those on the right: Because it's got all the scare tactics and misinformation that has so far been used to derail Barack Obama's campaign -- all in one handy illustration. Anyone who's tried to paint Obama as a Muslim, anyone who's tried to portray Michelle as angry or a secret revolutionary out to get Whitey, anyone who has questioned their patriotism -- well, here's your image," she said.

On Monday, commentators to a story about the flap on the Web site of Britain's Guardian newspaper debated whether Americans were sophisticated enough to understand satire.

Three African American media activists, Paul Porter of Industry Ears, Najee Ali of Project Islamic Hope, and the Rev. K.W. Tulloss of the Rev. Al Sharpton'sNational Action Network called for a national boycott of the magazine and urged store owners to pull it from their shelves.

Inside the issue, the New Yorker says, "Hertzberg, in Comment (p. 27), writes about the misbegotten notion that Obama is flip-flopping on major issues, and in 'Making It' . . . Ryan Lizza looks at Barack Obama's life from his move to Chicago in 1991 to his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004 -- 'the period that formed him as a politician,' and one largely underexamined by the media. Some of Obama's recent statements, about such subjects as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Iraq, surprised his supporters, but Lizza, after close examination of this period of Obama's life, notes that 'perhaps the greatest misconception about Barack Obama is that he is some sort of anti-establishment revolutionary.

"Rather, every stage of his political career has been marked by an eagerness to accommodate himself to existing institutions rather than tear them down or replace them.' Obama, Lizza continues, 'campaigns on reforming a broken political process, yet he has always played politics by the rules as they exist, not as he would like them to exist. He runs as an outsider, but he has succeeded by mastering the inside game."

Talk-Show Host McLaughlin Calls Obama an "Oreo"

"On the edition of the syndicated program 'The McLaughlin Group' that aired the weekend of July 11-13, while discussing recent comments made by the Rev. Jesse Jackson about Sen. Barack Obama, host John McLaughlin said: 'Question: Does it frost Jackson, Jesse Jackson, that someone like Obama, who fits the stereotype blacks once labeled as an Oreo -- a black on the outside, a white on the inside -- that an Oreo should be the beneficiary of the long civil rights struggle which Jesse Jackson spent his lifetime fighting for?" Media Matters for America reported on Sunday.

"Responding to McLaughlin's question, panelist and Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Peter Beinart said: 'Who knows what Jesse Jackson is thinking? But that's a completely unfair depiction of Barack Obama.' Later in the discussion, Michelle Bernard, president of the Independent Women's Forum, said: 'I want to go back to the point you made about whether or not Obama is an Oreo, because if Barack Obama is an Oreo, then every member of this generation of African-Americans is an Oreo, because we stand on the shoulders of the people who fought for our rights, and all of us say that you cannot blame "the man" or white racism for everything that ails the black community.'"

Race Relations Tied to Obama's Fate in November

"Barack Obama's groundbreaking candidacy has raised high expectations among blacks and whites that his election would make race relations in the United States better," Susan Pagereported Monday in USA Today.

"A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of nearly 2,000 Americans also finds about a third of both groups say the defeat of the first black to win a major party's presidential nomination would worsen race relations.

"The survey underscores the unusual stakes in this election even though neither Democrat Obama nor Republican John McCain has sought to cast their contest as a matter of racial politics but rather one of different prescriptions for the nation.

Black Media Awaiting Obama Campaign's Big Bucks

"In 2004, the John Kerry campaign made a July announcement that it would make a $2 million buy in African-American media. The buy, said African-American media experts, was never completed. BET got some money, but not much went elsewhere, they said. This time around, they're hoping for better from Sen. Barack Obama," Ira Teinowitzwrote Monday for AdAge.com.

"Mr. Obama might want to move beyond race, but African-American media outlets are hoping he remembers his roots. Not only would it benefit their particular media sector, it could also have an impact on congressional and local races.

"'We are very optimistic,' said Sherman K. Kizart, senior VP-director of urban marketing for Interep, which as the country's biggest independent radio rep firm represents more than 100 urban-format stations. He said his company is in talks with Fuse Advertising, the St. Louis agency that handles the Obama campaign's African-American efforts.

"An Obama spokesman said African-American media has been 'a high priority to the campaign and will continue to be in the remaining months.' He said the campaign is not in a position to disclose its media strategy."

Tribune Co. Loses Editor in Chicago, Publisher in L.A.

Ann Marie Lipinski, editor of the Chicago Tribune, resigned on Monday in the latest development on the Tribune Co.'s roller coaster ride under entrepreneur Sam Zell's ownership. Lipiniski said she had worked at the paper since she was a summer intern.

Later in the day, Los Angeles Times Publisher David Hiller resigned "after a 21-month tenure that included the departure of two Times editors and plans for the sharpest staff and production cuts in the newspaper's history amid a continuing slide in advertising revenue," Michael A. Hiltzikreported in the Times, which is also owned by Tribune Co.

"Hiller was the third Times publisher named since the newspaper was acquired in 2000 by Chicago-based Tribune. "

No successor to Hiller was named, but in Chicago, Gerould W. Kern, Tribune Publishing's vice president of editorial since 2003, was appointed as Lipinski's successor, the Tribune's Web site reported.

"Last month I wrote to say how much I valued your intelligence, professionalism and creativity and that I knew of no smarter or more inventive newsroom. Yet even in that I did not take your full measure. In recent weeks, faced with the call to reinvent your paper while reducing your ranks, you have shown new levels of commitment to your work and our readers and I could not be more grateful or awed," Lipinski wrote to the staff.

"For that reason and so many others, it is especially hard to tell you today that I have decided to resign. That decision was difficult and a long time coming and it would be inaccurate to attribute it to any one event. I began my editorship seven months before 9/11 and in the seven years since have become accustomed and even comfortable with editing and managing through crisis and change. But professionally, this position is not the fit it once was. Personally, my family and I believe it is time.

"In earlier conversations with Scott Smith," the retiring Chicago Tribune publisher, "and most recently with Bob Gremillion," the Tribune Co. group vice president who is filling in for Smith, "I have expressed a desire to consider something new and I am grateful for the deep respect they showed me throughout those discussions. At the same time, there is much to do and your new owners should have their own editor, compatible with their style and goals, so today Bob will name my successor. He inherits a treasure in this newspaper and this staff, and I will count on you to continue to work hard on our readers' behalf, just as you have done in the years we have been together."

George de Lama, who as managing editor for news at the Chicago Tribune was one of the highest-ranking Latinos in mainstream daily newspapers, announced in May he was leaving the paper. Just last week, the paper began informing staff Tuesday it will eliminate around 80 of its current 578 newsroom positions by the end of August and reduce the number of pages it publishes by 13 percent to 14 percent each week," Phil Rosenthal reported then in the Tribune.

Lipinski was named editor of the paper in 2001 after having been executive editor and managing editor. She was appointed head of the newspaper's investigative team in 1990 and was named associate managing editor for metropolitan news in 1991. Lipinski was deputy managing editor/news from 1993 until 1995, when she was appointed managing editor.

"Kern, who joined the Chicago Tribune in 1991 as suburban editor after serving as executive editor and managing editor of The Daily Herald in Arlington Heights, Ill., later served as the Tribune's associate managing editor/metro, deputy managing editor/features and associate editor," the Tribune story said.

"Later, as editorial director for Tribune Publishing, Kern was responsible for coordinating editorial cooperation and coverage among the company's daily newspapers. That included co-directing the assemblage of a new Tribune Co. Washington D.C. bureau, which opened in late 2005, bringing together for the first time all Tribune Co.'s newspaper and broadcasting staff in the nation's capital.

"Earlier this year, Kern was installed as named vice president/news and features for Tribune Media Services."

Miami Columnist: Herald Didn't Want My Experience

Among the 42 names on the list of those in the Miami Herald newsroom who took the latest buyout was that of Robert Steinback, a longtime local columnist who was in this space last year when he returned from a year's sabbatical and couldn't get his old job back.

Friday was Steinback's last day. "I took the buyout, frankly, because the Herald refused to give me any reason for optimism that I might one day return to commentary," Steinback told Journal-isms on Sunday. "The final straw was when my old job of Metro columnist, which I did for 12 years, came open when the current Metro columnist, Ana Menendez, accepted a fellowship to teach in Egypt. I applied for the job, but the internal posting said that the optimal candidate would speak English and Spanish ‚Äî so I didn't even qualify for a job I held for 12 years."

"When I tried to ask about the prospects that I might ever return to commentary, I was essentially told that the paper was 'going in another direction.' That's about as specific as it got.

"When I returned from sabbatical, I was made a Neighbors community editor. I did that for six months, then was moved to the City Desk, where I served for nine months as Education and Environment editor. But I longed to write, made that clear, and got no encouraging responses.

"At the moment, I have no plans; I'll be spending the next couple of months working that out (and hopefully it won't take too much longer than that!). I have a total of 17 years experience writing columns, as a Metro, Editorial and free-lance (during my sabbatical) columnist. It was experience the Herald didn't want ‚Äî and I've never received an 'official' reason why not."

Asked about Steinback's complaint last year, Dave Wilson, managing editor/news, told Journal-isms, "Robert hadn't been a fulltime columnist at the Herald for several years before his sabbatical. His departure from the regular column lineup was something he worked out with editors at that time. Robert's assignments before he went on sabbatical included a stint as higher-ed reporter and just prior to leaving general assignment. There were no plans for Robert to resume column writing upon his return."

Steinback was a local columnist for 12 years (1990-2002), then wrote for the op-ed page for four years (2002-2006) as an editorial columnist.

"I can write a book about all the ways this paper has disappointed me. But I also learned a lot here: about toughness, integrity and truth. We make mistakes and we're crabby. But you will find no finer collection of idealists.'"

Spanish-Language Television Journalists Paid Less

"As their contract negotiations intensified this week, the newsroom employees at San Francisco's leading Spanish-language news station -- KDTV Channel 14 -- should have been in a strong bargaining position. Not only is the newsroom full of coveted bilingual journalists, but for the past two ratings periods KDTV has beaten most of its Bay Area English-language competitors in various ratings contests," Joe Garofoli reported Sunday in the San Francisco Chronicle.

"But when it comes to Spanish-language television news, high ratings don't translate into high salaries. Many KDTV reporters and producers, like their counterparts at Spanish-language stations across the country, earn roughly one-fourth less in base pay than their competitors at English-language stations, even if the 6 p.m. newscast they're producing is attracting more viewers in the coveted 25-54 demographic than every Bay Area station except KGO-TV.

"Their plight is echoed across the country. While the foreign-born Hispanic population in the United States grew 25 percent between 2000 and 2006 to 17.6 million, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, analysts say the advertising world has been slow to adapt to the demographic changes in Spanish-language media -- and the effects have trickled down through the media food chain.

"So while the Spanish-language news audience may be growing, many advertisers don't perceive Hispanics to be the 'right audience,"' according to bilingual television advertising expert Roxane Garzon."

A 2002 study from the University of California at Los Angeles found that the median salary for on-air talent at Spanish-language stations in Los Angeles was $60,000, compared with about $200,000 at English-language stations, The study also found that journalists at Spanish-language stations receive inferior health and retirement benefits

The study was based on responses from 114 Spanish-language on-air broadcasters and on 14 in-depth interviews with broadcasters.

Manuel De La Rosa, vice president for broadcast of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, said he had urged NAHJ to call upon the Spanish-language broadcasters to redress the difference.

NPR's "Bryant Park Project" an Expensive Failure

National Public Radio officials on Monday told staff members of "Bryant Park Project" that their experimental weekday morning program, designed to draw a younger audience to public radio and capture listeners who had moved online, is being canceled, as Elizabeth Jensenwrote in the New York Times that they would.

"The last broadcast of this New York-based program, which many listeners tuned into at npr.org rather than over the air, is expected to be on July 25. It's an expensive failure -- the first-year budget was more than $2 million -- and comes at a time when NPR is facing the same financial constraints as other news media thanks to higher costs and a downturn in underwriting."

Baltimore Sun's Mike Adams Takes Buyout After 25 Years

Mike Adams, an assistant city editor at the Baltimore Sun, is taking a buyout and leaving the paper after 25 years, he told Journal-isms on Monday. He plans to leave on Aug. 1.

"During my time at The Sun, I was the city editor -- the only black person to hold that job -- and my other jobs included national reporter, rewrite, assistant city editor and education editor. For about six years, I edited the Perspective, the news and commentary section that appeared on Sundays. Before I joined The Evening Sun in 1983, I was the chief political reporter for The Wilmington (Del.) News-Journal. I'm a 1978 graduate of The Summer Program for Minority Journalists at Berkeley," he added.

The Baltimore Sun Media Group, which publishes The Sun and community newspapers, planned to eliminate 100 jobs by early August to cut costs and stay competitive, Publisher Timothy E. Ryan told employees last month.

The Sun plans to reduce the 1,400-person work force through voluntary buyouts, layoffs, attrition and by closing open positions. A majority of the cuts are expected to come from the newsroom, Lorraine Mirabellawrote on June 26.

Root.com Columnist Quit Over Responses to Her Call

Melissa Harris-Lacewell, the Princeton professor who contributed regularly to theRoot.com, resigned late last week because of conflicts with Jimi Izrael, another contributor with whom she exchanged views, Harris-Lacewell told Journal-isms on Monday.

"I choose to leave TheRoot.com after the recent blog about BET Hip-Hop v. America on Jimi Izrael's blog, 'The Hardline,'" she wrote via e-mail. "This is a choice I made because of how the editorial staff at TheRoot handled my response. When I saw Izrael's blog I immediately contacted my editor and asked her to remove the offending paragraph. In the now deleted paragraph he referred to me as 'Missy', Cat' and his 'work-wife.' He also suggested that I 'Holla at ya boy.'

"I have never met Jimi Izrael. I have never been in the same room with him. I once had a brief phone conversation with him in which he was rude so I never again corresponded with him via phone or email. He is not my friend in any way. Therefore, to me, his blog suggested a dishonest personal familiarity.

"This is also in the context of his earlier calling me 'baby mama' during an on-line disagreement about child support and his repeatedly calling my cell phone after my surgery. In those messages he said, 'I know women like you don't need a man but maybe you need a fruit basket or some reading materials or something.' He then later described these actions as 'friendly attempts to be supportive after my surgery.' I read them as harassing. His nasty blog post came after I refused to respond to all of his more personal attempts to contact me. As far as I am concerned he took the opportunity of my post-surgical vulnerability to publicly attack me. That is not what I signed up for when I chose to write for TheRoot.

"Apparently my editors saw the situation differently. Three weeks ago I wrote on my blog that Jimi's work was 'unrelenting [misogyny]." He had just posted a blog where he called a 14 year old girl a 'hoodrat lolita' and posted links to the blog that included the minor child's photographs. He also posted a blog where he made fun of lesbians. I did a little google work and found that he has a long history of writing provocative anti-gay internet writings. Again, for me that was beyond acceptable and I spoke out about it on my own blog.

"My editors did not see the distinction between my discussion of Jimi's work and Jimi's personal attack on me. I believe they are quite different. Perhaps from an editorial perspective these things are not different.

"So I took a deep breath and realized that I had to respect the editor's decision to see this situation differently. I had to understand that as an editor she was concerned with intervening in the free expression of ideas of one of her writers. I think that is a fair and reasonable choice. I also had to realize that I could not continue to write for a site where Jimi would be allowed to degrade women, girls and me and would have equal space in the masthead with me. I believe that Izrael's personal and anti-woman aggression is central to his writing style and public voice. Again I have never met him personally, I am responding only to his public writings and his personal behavior toward me.

"I am not a journalist. I don't have to write in a space that feels hostile. (Especially when it pays so little!) So I made a choice to leave. I am not angry with TheRoot.com or the way that my editor handled the situation. I am sad and disappointed, of course, but I also feel very clear that this was the right decision for me."

Lynette Clemetson, managing editor of theRoot.com, told Journal-isms she would have no further comment. She said Friday of Harris-Lacewell, "She's a talented writer who contributed a great deal to The Root. We wish her only the best."

Izrael said, "Dr. Harris-Lacewell is a fine writer who contributed a great voice to The Root. I wish her nothing but the best."

Ray Hanania has asked the 250 members of his Arab American Journalists Association to boycott the Unity: Journalists of Color convention in Chicago next week because the alliance of black, Hispanic, Asian American and Native American journalists won't admit his group as a partner, Emil Guillermowrote on Thursday in AsianWeek. "I tell fellow members, 'If they don't respect you, why attend?'" Hanania said. "I expect respect in my disrespect."

Broadcasters and the International Olympic Committee "are pushing China to keep its promises and open up Tiananmen Square to more hours of live coverage for the Beijing Olympics," the Associated Press reported on Sunday. "Unfettered access to Tiananmen, site of a bloody crackdown on the 1989 democracy movement, is being used to gauge how far China's communist government will go in granting press freedom, which it promised seven years ago to help win the Olympic bid."

"A Philippine TV network has broadcast videos shot secretly by one of its crews while they were abducted by suspected Muslim militants, offering a glimpse into their jungle ordeal including threats to behead one of them," the Associated Press reported on Monday from Manila. "ABS-CBN aired the videos late Sunday in a documentary titled "Kidnap," partly to help police on southern Jolo island identify the kidnappers of news anchor Ces Drilon and two cameramen, who were released last month after a ransom was paid. Recounting her 10-day captivity, Drilon said in the documentary that she was ready to kill any militant who might have tried to rape her."

Feedback: Magazine Cover¬†Controversies Are Last Gasp

You have to tie together all of these magazine controversies. They're all intentional. Print publications are struggling. Magazines no longer create buzz with their stories so they have resorted to cover controversies revolving around racial issues:¬† ¬†LeBron-Gisele, the noose controversy with the golf magazine¬†and Tiger Woods, the "Black KKK" on the Playboy cover and now the New Yorker with Barack and Michelle. This is not a coincidence. ¬†It's a trend. It's a last-gasp for relevancy for print publications.

There were constant rumors that dogged Bill Clinton's presidency and Hillary
Clinton's political career that Bill was an oversexed bad boy and Hillary
was a political monster and lesbian. ¬†These rumors were discussed and
fanned by the same right-wing Internet and talk-show zealots who are making¬†life tough on Barack.
¬†¬†
Did the New Yorker ever do a satirical cover exaggerating Bill's lack of¬†sexual discipline and Hillary's alleged lesbianism?¬†
¬†¬†
I'm not a subscriber to New Yorker, but I tend to think I would've heard¬†about that cover. Maybe I missed it? ¬†

Richard Prince's Journal-isms originates from Washington and is published Monday, Wednesday and Friday. It began in print before most of us knew what the Internet was, and it would like to be referred to as a "column." For newcomers: The words in blue (on most computers) are links leading to more information. The Web site BugMeNot.com provides passwords and user names to some registration-only news sites, but use may be illegal in some states. Any views expressed in the column are those of the person or organization quoted and not those of any other entity.

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Instead of spending all our time calling out journalism that doesn't work, we want to find work we like. We'd like to encourage our readers to submit links to content that is moving or challenging and that goes beyond the standard narrative either at the level of form or content. In other words, we want to see journalism that works.

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